


Echoes of You

by Amet (Ametchu)



Category: Kamen Rider - All Media Types, Kamen Rider Drive
Genre: Discussion of canon major character death, Everybody talks about Chase all the time, M/M, Post-series Gou is still a brat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-10 04:09:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20521715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ametchu/pseuds/Amet
Summary: "Do you have any idea what it's like to have people you're supposed to trust with your life look you in the eye and visibly wish you were a Roidmude?"That feeling when your dead buddy’s human doppelgänger arrests you and your brother in law forces you to make nice with him anyway.  Directly follows the events of the Kamen Rider Mach movie.





	Echoes of You

**Author's Note:**

> There are some brief mentions of Reiko in here, but I feel like Gou’s attempts to force a relationship to work there are as performative as his fireworks displays when he’s really looking for attention. Being damaged and trying to force your life into a shape you think looks normal to shake off your past does not a lasting relationship make. (That and it’s kind of hard to be a good boyfriend when you’re pulling all nighters trying to bring back that super hot Roidmude you’re obsessed with.)

**Echoes of You**

Shin-niisan makes a hilarious disgusted face at the both of them when Kano hauls Gou in, dragging his heels just to make the jerk _work_ for it. Gou enjoys how hard the human wearing his buddy's face has to yank at him to keep him moving, not nearly as strong as the Roidmude had been and there's petty satisfaction in that. Shin-niisan's arms come up to cross loosely over his chest, sitting back on the hood of his police car giving off cool big brother vibes like that's totally his thing now. Like Gou's never seen him cooing over Eiji and obsessively buying stuffed animals to fill his living room with like a total _dork_. 

He wonders vaguely if Kano buys into this work image and snorts. 

After a long moment staring the both of them down, Shin-niisan says, "Detective. I'm not booking him." 

Gou laughs bitterly. It's not even worth the I-told-you-so, a hollow victory when the moment he'd worked for months for is already passed. He'd been a perfect theatrical step away from reaffirming his relationship with Reiko before this rule-mongering jerk wearing his friend's face had slapped cuffs on him and insisted on bundling her into an ambulance for a checkup because it was _procedure_. Of course. Why do anything if there isn't a written code compelling you? 

That seems to throw Kano for a loop, the man's entire body stiffening. "He assaulted me to make his escape." 

"I did not assault you—!" Gou starts, rolling his eyes. 

Kano's glare slants his way as he insists, "The darkening bruise on my stomach proves otherwise." 

"I knocked you out so you wouldn't be labeled an accomplice after the fact when I got away," Gou snarls, yanking at the cuffs around his wrists in punctuation, "I did you a _favor_." 

"You broke the law." 

Shin-niisan's nose wrinkles. "Well, he's being pardoned. You don't seem grievously injured, and sometimes we make exceptions when cybernetic organisms manipulate the situation." 

"Sir, I must respectfully—" 

"Detective." Shin-niisan's hands find Kanno's shoulders, leaning down to do that annoyingly earnest stare that's gotten him farther than it probably should, "It sounds like the elusive Kamen Rider Mach saved the day. Let's encourage him to do it again if we need him by _not_ throwing him in jail immediately afterwards." 

"Besides," he straightens, looking away nervously and tugging at his shirt cuffs like he expects to still have a brace there, "My wife would kill me." 

Gou doesn't laugh. It takes a lot more energy than he's got left. 

—-

"You really can't just go around punching police officers," Shin-niisan tells him a few days later over dinner at his apartment. 

Gou looks up from dangling a little stuffed bear in Eiji's face and glowers. 

"I mean it, Gou. Kano's been at me since then to reconsider. And I did technically make an exception that was more about my feelings than the law. Now he thinks you're allowed to do whatever you want and I won't stop you. I'm losing face in his eyes." 

That's bad. Gou knows how hard Shin-niisan's had to work to regain the respect of his fellow officers now that he's not super powered. Overcoming fears that the great Kamen Rider Drive isn't quite as useful as boring old Detective Tomari has been an uphill battle, and that he _has_ subordinates to disappoint is an accomplishment. He needs them to see him as a trustworthy ally, and in particular Shin-niisan seems to want Kano's esteem, like somehow it's the same as having a piece of Chase back. 

Gou thinks that's bullshit and avoids the guy as much as possible so he doesn't have to deal with the way his heart lurches at the sight of him, but he's getting better at holding his immediate reactions in when it won't get him anywhere. 

_"See that, Chase?"_ he thinks at the little signal bike in his pocket, _"I'm learning restraint. That's probably your fault."_

Neesan is watching him carefully with that dangerous gleam in her eye. Waiting for Gou to fix it and he wilts in his seat, takes a moment to figure out how to slump in defeat while still curled around the baby. Eiji only looks up at him and coos, drooling a little into his shirt. 

"What do you want me to do about it?" he asks flatly, huffing. 

Shin-niisan brightens immediately, pumping a fist in the air. "Yes! I knew you wouldn't let me down!" 

—-

Not letting Shin-niisan down somehow translates into meeting Kano for a drink the next afternoon so he can try to talk some sense into the senseless. He ignores that part at first, sitting down with a beer it's really too early for and making small talk with the waitress. It's a good time, nattering on about hops and flavors and the beer he'd gotten used to in America until the open-air portion of the cafe Shin-niisan chose for them like the mother hen he is clears out enough around them to get real. Then he sits in silent contemplation, fingering Chase's license in his pocket. 

It's satisfying, watching Kano's frustration mount. Sitting back in his little cafe seat, Gou smiles like he's too busy enjoying the sunny day to notice the other man's palpable distress, imagines how he'd photograph the scraggly flowers springing from the box hanging off the railing beside him or the birds fluttering around a small tree on the sidewalk to keep himself calm. The detective's fuming silently over a glass of freaking _juice_, hands tense on the table like he's trying not to fiddle with anything while he stares at Gou through his stupid cop shades, the calm facade he throws up cracking beneath the weight of his frustration. 

Gou promised Shin-niisan he would play nice, and he expects his brother-in-law to admire his restraint later. Anyone else who threatened his family's happiness with him would already be spitting teeth. He's just waiting the guy out instead of demanding to know what his problem is, arresting him /three minutes/ after he'd saved the day. 

Even Chase would've looked at the context first, by the end. 

Words finally explode out of Kano, shaking his skinny frame, but softly, pittering against his rigid posture like he doesn't have the energy to get more excited. "Do you have any idea what it's like to have people you're supposed to trust with your life look you in the eye and visibly wish you were a Roidmude?" 

Gou blinks at him, brow furrowing. Those aren't the words he'd been expecting. 

"Uh, no. That is not a problem I've experienced," he says, crumpling his napkin and tossing it onto the table, "But I do know what it's like to have people look at me like the son of the crazy asshole who tried to turn them all into data. I can always tell when I meet someone who knows. I get through an introduction, and then that pinched wariness sets in, like if they look scared in front of me it might trigger my transformation into him." 

Chase would tell him he's not his father. That he is honorable and worthy and all that sentimental crap a robot shouldn't be capable of in the most matter-of-fact terms possible. Would believe it too, that just like the best and brightest of the Roidmude, he's evolved beyond the limitations of his creator and is no longer bound by them. 

Gou writes whole converstions with Chase in his head, knows the eloquent way his head would tip, expression almost blank and maybe a little brow furrow before he deicimated whatever self-pitying bullshit Gou was nursing throwing out the heart of the matter beneath. Childishly refusing to coddle the conflicting anxieties that get in the way, because he doesn't really understand them enough to see why they should. So certain that Gou's a better person than he is, and he hadn't realized how much comfort he took from that simplistic insistence until it was gone. 

What Kano says is, "Oh." 

It's another reminder that this is _not Chase_, for all that the perfect architecture of Kano's face is just the same. This isn't even someone he knows, even if his brain's trying to trick him into thinking otherwise, lurching hopefully when Kano's brow furrows in a wonderfully familar expression of consternation. That's the thing that Chase had always missed entirely, that relationships were not quantifiable. They had to be _built_ through shared experience and mutual affection. 

They were more of an art than a science, which is how they snuck up on you when you tried so hard not to see them coming. Sometimes they ran you over when you weren't looking. 

Gou takes pity on him, grinning crookedly. "You know what? You should find that investor Heart copied and the ballerina Medic copied. Start a support group." 

"I've actually met Kineta-san, the intelligence director who Brain imprinted. He reached out to me a few months ago." Kano half-shrugs. "Nice guy. A little twitchy." 

Gou thinks of that stupid handkerchief Brain waved around with a twisted sort of fondness. "I remember." 

"They're not the same," Kano insists. 

There's a tenseness that creeps into Kano's posture again just when he was beginning to relax, shoulders straightening. His fingers find his napkin and start to shred, and Gou tries not to look, knowing that if he acknowledges the little tic Kano will stop himself. It's humanizing, and so utterly un-Chase that it eases the knot in Gou's chest at the other man's proximity, feeling a little less like he's seeing an afterimage that isn't real. 

"No," he says carefully, meeting Kano's eyes behind the glasses, "Believe me, I get that he's not. That you're not either. I can tell." 

There's weight behind the statement, but he's not up for explaining. Knows that if this emotionally stunted cop is anything like his friend, he'll get it anyway. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the little purple signal bike he'd filched before Steinbelt had a chance to junk it with the rest, the shift car that contains Chase's data (enough that he'd been able to walk Kano himself into a firefight with a Roidmude less than a week ago, and that gives Gou so much _hope_ he's still trying to choke it down before he burns himself out). The license comes out last, and Gou can't ever not chuckle at the stupid, forced smile on Chase's face. 

Sentimental value aside, it's also one of the few photographs of Chase ever taken. That's partly his own fault for insisting he couldn't stand the guy for so long, and he feels like an idiot now for not taking more. If—no, _when_ they get him back, he's going to teach Chase what annoyance feels like making up for lost time. 

Kano freezes, staring at them like they might bite him. Gou guesses no one told him Gou was a walking memorial to the guy who stole his face, the Roidmude's pathetically small collection of worldly possessions carried in loving memory tucked inside of his hoodie. It's only fair; what passes for Chase's actual grave with all the shattered pieces of his cybernetic body is a cardboard box in an evidence locker somewhere. 

"I've read the files," Kano says softly, motioning slowly, waiting for Gou's nod before he picks up the license gingerly, studying it. "But... no one will talk to me about him. What was he like?" 

"He was amazing," Gou says immediately, almost before he has a chance to think about it, and that's the thing about Chase, the immediacy of his feelings still sharp and clear like he was here yesterday. 

Kano sighs, longsuffering, at him. "That doesn't mean anything I can understand." 

"He was the kindest man I've ever known," Gou clarifies, doesn't even have the heart to be annoyed, because everyone else is sick of hearing him talk about Chase and he'll take the audience for what it's worth. "And _so_ annoying. So sure of himself, and all of us. He'd establish these perameters of how he thought things, even people worked, and even when I thought he was full of it, eventually I'd realize he was _right_. He saw through every front I put up, all the face-saving maneuvers people hide behind to fool each other. There was no lying to him, because he always knew." 

Gou shakes his head, sitting back in his seat. His fingers clench around the base of his glass, cool condensation leeching warmth from the pads of his fingers. "He knew before I did how much he meant to me. How much I—" 

"Loved him?"

Kano has that infuriatingly bland look on his face Gou knows all too well as he throws that out, like it's not a conversational bomb and way over the line of overly familiar, expression unreadable behind his shades. 

Gou's hand twitches, freezing up for a moment before he manages to sputter, "He was my friend. He gave his life for me. I'm trying to return the favor." 

Kanno is nodding, wisely choosing not to push. He places the license back on the table with all due reverence. "I think I understand now. Thank you for talking with me." 

"I don't hate you," Gou blurts impulsively as the other man stands to throw down his part of the check. "I don't even know you." 

It sounds ridiculous, and Gou winces at the awkwardness of throwing that out there on its own, but it feels suddenly important to make that clear. Chase would want him to try. Chase would want a lot of things if he knew they were in contact, and the thought of it makes the ache in Gou's chest tighten again. 

He watches Kano accept that, painfully straighforward, and the little head tip of acknowledgement he gets is so _Chase_ he can't breathe for a moment. 

At length, Kano says, "I'm sorry for your loss." 

Gou sucks in a ragged breath and picks up Chase's signal bike, fiddling with the wheels for a moment before he feels steady enough to answer. "Thanks. I'm sorry my loss is making your life harder." 

They're spouting platitudes at each other, but in this moment, with this painfully earnest person, that's all right. That's exactly what Chase would say, memorizing key phrases to keep the humans around him comfortable. It's funny how the line between what Gou always assumed was the machine in him making him misstep and the awkward human he'd imprinted blurs. The difference is that Kano can identify his faults, knows when he's likely caused offense and the backwash from that explains a lot about his rigidity, struggling to understand the people around him and _knowing_ he's failing. 

"Hey, Kano?" Gou says, before he can think too hard about it and before the detective can walk away, "Why didn't you ever come see him when he was alive? Weren't you curious?" 

Kano shrugs a shoulder at him. "Honestly? I didn't know about him." 

"How is that possible? You worked in the same building." 

"I was in traffic enforcement," Kano says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "As far away from cybernetic crimes as you can get. I only realized Chase existed when he was gone, and some of those women officers who hang out in the cafeteria started crying at the sight of me." 

The mental image of Chase's groupies sobbing at the sight of Kano is pretty amusing, and Gou can't quite keep the smile off his face, shaking his head. "That's ridiculous. You know that, right?" 

"I have been told that I have a... unique perspective." 

Gou laughs. "I'll say." 

Kano actually smiles, tight-lipped and self conscious, and it's like watching the sun come out from behind a cloud. 

"I do wish I'd gotten the chance to speak to him," Kano admits, and he's back to fidgeting, messing with his keys. 

That's probably for the best, Gou thinks, because as soon as Chase realizes the human he copied is hanging out with their friends on the force he'll make a beeline for him. He wonders what that will look like, if Chase will be able to contain his questions or if he'll pepper the detective with them until the human can't take it anymore, trailing around after him like a lost robotic puppy. He hopes with everything in him to see that day come, both because he can't stop _missing_ the idiot and because he's still a little pettily gleeful at the idea of annoying Kano that much. 

He's nothing if not tenacious when he wants something, so when he answers, he can say with absolute conviction, "Someday you will."

Gou imagines the little bike in his hand is smiling at the idea of it too.


End file.
